A steamroller was lashed in the hold
of the vessel that carried the line
whose reach would come to bear me
thirteen tons below deck—
daily descents to make it fast,
my birthright hibernating in cold steel
as some escaped the chambers,
bound for a land that had long refused
to be rolled into submission.

a storm, blackout,
shackle marks on the fibulas
beneath the candlelight
of my birth in Constantia

I draw the ships again
and again with wax crayons—
our backs on fresh-cut grass,
looking up every Sunday,
the four thirty jumbo jet
departing over Kirstenbosch,
lifting me from
these rolling lawns.

summer storms, winter sunlight,
I live in the reach of thirteen tons
settled to brick in Orange Grove,
gravity—
on the high ridge, the watershed
of this continental flex